Satellite navigation: new ways to find our way

They guide drivers to their destination, provide "You are here" arrows on
online maps and improve the safety of air and sea travel: satellite location
and navigation ("sat nav") services have become part of everyday life, thanks to
Global Positioning System (GPS) technology being widely available for vehicles and
smartphones.

Originally developed in the
United States for defence applications, back in the 1970s, GPS services became available
to civilians in the 1990s. The technology is based on the user's receiver
picking up precisely timed radio signals from orbiting satellites, and
calculating its distance from each source.

Since the signals also
communicate the position of each satellite in its orbit, the device can combine
the information to pinpoint the location of the user in three dimensions. The
precise time signals from the constellation of satellites - 32 in total for GPS
- can also provide accurate time and synchronisation data for mobile phones and
networks.

Where are we now?

The Europe Union is currently
launching 30 satellites for its
own Global Navigation Satellite System
(GNSS), called Galileo, but the EU and US are not the only players. Many
other countries and regions are developing sat nav systems: GLONASS in Russia,
IRNSS from India, BeiDou in China and QZSS from Japan.

More than half of the mobile
phones in Europe and the US now include satellite positioning. And, according to the European GNSS
Agency (GSA), the sat nav market
continues to grow rapidly, with 2 billion GNSS devices installed globally by
2013.

The GSA expects the global
market to reach €250 billion by 2022, as the installed base of GNSS devices more
than triples to 7 billion. European companies are strong in telecoms and rail
infrastructure, as well as car and antenna manufacturing, and most of this
growth will be outside the EU and US, so there are huge opportunities available
if European innovation can keep pace.

New devices and evolving services

In 2013, the EPO received
more than 13 500 patent applications across all digital
communications and telecommunications fields, e.g. because of the boom in smartphone and network technogies. Innovation in satellite navigation now represents
a significant proportion of these, with a total of more than 3200
sat nav-based European patent applications published so far.

Nowadays, most drivers use sat nav, whether built into their vehicles or in separate devices. Surveyors use
satellite positioning for road building and settling land-use claims, while
geologists and archaeologists can make more detailed maps than ever before.

Sat nav technology has been extended to aviation
and shipping, and cyclists and runners can use it to keep track of
their training routes. Photographers can even have the precise spot where they
take each picture recorded and coded with the image.

As satellite positioning has
been added to new devices such as smartphones and tablets, GPS or GNSS data is
combined with other information to enable Location-Based Services (LBS). By
2013, there were more than 700 000 LBS-based apps for each of the Apple
and Android platforms. The GSA estimates that 40% of all apps use location
information - such as ‘augmented reality' applications that overlay localised
information on to images of the real world.

Key patents and new innovations

The commercial GPS chipset
that helped to popularise satellite navigation services, by making them cheaper
and more reliable, won Sanjai
Kohli and Steven Chen a European Inventor Award in 2010. Prior to their
invention, GPS receivers were large and expensive, relying on signals from
three or four satellites. By developing and miniaturising ‘asynchronous signal
processing', their research team produced microchips that could ‘fill in the
blanks' when only one satellite signal was available, and that could be mass
produced for consumer devices.

Nominated for a European
Inventor Award in 2007, Hakan
Lans patented a navigation system that makes the aviation and maritime
industries safer and allows for more efficient routes. The Self-Organised Time-Division
Multiple Access (STDMA) data link allows satellite-positioning data - more
accurate than radar - to be shared among aeroplanes, ships, air traffic control
and coastguards.

More recently, the 2013 European Satellite Navigation Competition was won by
the start-up, Kinexon. As the company's
CEO, Dr Alexander Hüttenbrink, explains in the film above, their patent-pending
system uses multiple small sensors acting like satellites and nearby base
stations for high-precision indoor localisation. By applying these techniques
to sport, trainers can follow and replay their players' movements. With 3D
centimetre-level accuracy, the system could also be used in hospitals and care
homes, where it could even detect when a patient falls.

Outlook: where are we going?

The GSA projects annual shipments
of GNSS-enabled devices in the EU to reach more than 600 million by 2022, with
LBS and road applications accounting for the largest market share. Agricultural
applications, such as tractor guidance and automatic steering, will also drive
growth.

New regulations for greater
road, sea and air safety, whether at the European, national or international
level, will also increase demand for GNSS services: the EU's Digital Tachograph
initiative aims to ensure safe rest periods for truck drivers, while the eCall
system will automatically send data to emergency services in the event of an
accident. Environmental and safety concerns will also push applications in
traffic monitoring, road-use charging, Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems
(ADAS) or pay-per-use vehicle sharing and insurance.

Innovation in this sector
seems to be on the right road, and thanks to GNSS, we need never lose our way.

Kinexon's CEO, Dr Alexander Hüttenbrink, explains how their
system uses multiple small sensors acting like satellites for high-precision
localisation indoors - with applications for sports coaching or in hospitals.